A US federal district court judge has handed a preliminary injunction to Hollywood studios, to prevent RealNetworks from selling its RealDVD product to US customers who want to copy DVDs using the software.
"The RealDVD products, by their very nature, open a veritable Pandora’s box of liability for Real,” wrote Judge Marilyn …

circumvents a technological measure that effectively controls access to or copying

Hmm @ puns

This judge really has a thing for Vegas... and puns. She knows that movie was awful, right?

Do... do people actually break copyright by copying retail DVDs? Does that actually happen these days? I really can't imagine that direct copies of retail DVDs amounts to a significant portion of piracy these days. They'd be better off reserving their legal budgets for suing more nefarious bittorrent-wielding students.

Kafka was a merkin

"So while it may well be fair use for an individual consumer to store a backup copy of a personally owned DVD on that individual's computer, federal law has nonetheless made it illegal to manufacture or traffic in a device or tool that permits a consumer to make such copies"

They have their cronies everywhere

The RIAA (mafia) have their cronies everywhere. Pretty soon they'll come after the PC manufacturers because after all, you need that to be copying a DVD - next is the electricity company for providing the 'criminals' with the necessary power for their theft!

Oh wait!

Isn't it time that somebody stopped these criminal copyright companies?? What is this world coming too?

Earth to Judge Marilyn Hall Patel

"But it is what it is. Once the distributive nature of the copying process takes hold, like the spread of gossip after a weekend in Vegas, what's done cannot be undone."

You see, the cat IS out of the bag. The worms have left the can. It's done. Put a fork in it.

When you combine the world-reaching power of "the internet" (what ever that is), powerful computers in every home, and powerful software freely available to anybody who wants it, the only logical end result is that Big Business no longer has a monopoly on the distribution channels for anything that can be digitized. Like it or not, that is the way it is. Copyright laws as we know them need revamping. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but them's the facts, regardless.

Another Hollywood/Disney Toady

Let's watch the next session of Congress extend Copyright to 500 years after death AND decide that there is NO fair use of anything. Watch for libraries to be outlawed within 5 years and video rentals to be outlawed withing 10 years.

Oh noes!

Humbug.

Should I mention DVDDecrypter?

I mean, I know it's illegal and stopped both development and official distribution some time ago, but it doesn't take much to find it. Then your fair use is protected. And then there's AnyDVD which is a commercial product that can remove protections and make copies of pretty much anything up and including BluRay.

Unlike RealDVD, which I understand just changed encryption schemes and locked the copy to your PC.